Date: 2015-02-09
Type of information: Initiation of development program
phase: 1
Announcement: initiation of a development program
Company: Janssen Biotech, a J&J company (USA - NJ) - Aduro Biotech (USA - CA)
Product: ADU-741
Action
mechanism: cell therapy/immunotherapy. ADU-741 is a multivalent LADD product candidate engineered specifically for the treatment of prostate cancer. Aduro’s platform technology is a proprietary LADD method of engineering Listeria mononcytogenes bacteria into therapeutic agents that stimulate targeted immune response to specific tumor antigens. LADD technology is designed to enable the safe administration of Listeria by deleting two genes critical to the bacterium’s natural virulence – internalin B and act A, which control infection of hepatocytes and spread of bacterial DNA. The attenuated strain of bacteria is then modified with new genetic material to encode and express specific tumor antigens. The engineered Listeria is designed to be absorbed by the patient’s antigen presenting cells, including dendritic cells, which are primary initiators of both the innate and adaptive immune responses. Once absorbed, the LADD-engineered bacterium releases genetic material and antigens into the dendritic cell cytosol. The dendritic cell immediately launches an innate immune response (by releasing cytokines and other signaling proteins) and then processes the tumor antigen genes from the LADD bacterium. These antigens are presented on the dendritic cell surface where they are “read” by CD4 and CD8 T cells, which then initiate an adaptive immune response specific to the target antigen.
Disease: prostate cancer
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology
Country:
Trial details:
Latest
news: * On February 9, 2015, Aduro Biotech announced that it has achieved its first milestone under its collaboration with Janssen Biotech, Inc., by initiating toxicology studies to support an Investigational New Drug Application for ADU-741, an immuno-oncology product candidate for the treatment of prostate cancer. The Janssen decision to advance ADU-741 toward clinical trials was based on preclinical data generated in the first eight months of the collaboration. This accomplishment triggered a milestone payment to Aduro. In May 2014, Aduro entered into an agreement granting Janssen an exclusive, worldwide license to certain product candidates specifically engineered for the treatment of prostate cancer based on its novel LADD immunotherapy platform. Under the agreement, facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Innovation, California, Aduro is eligible to receive up to a potential total of $365 million in upfront license fees and milestone payments upon achievement of defined development, regulatory and commercialization milestones, if multiple programs advance to commercialization, as well as tiered royalties on worldwide net sales.
